A diverse range of issues were discussed at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Thursday morning press conference, including the gruesome Teuchtitlán case (see MND’s latest report here) and the latest World Happiness Report (see our article here).
Reporters also asked questions about Cuban doctors in Mexico, the soon-to-be enforced ban on junk food in schools and the United States’ protectionist agenda.
Cuban doctors not taking jobs from Mexicans, Sheinbaum says
In response to a question about the government’s hiring of doctors from Cuba, Sheinbaum said, “It is very important for people to know that they don’t substitute Mexican doctors.”
In 2022, Mexico’s medical community rejected the federal government’s plan to hire some 500 Cuban doctors, asserting that it was disrespectful of Mexican doctors and claiming there were enough Mexican physicians to meet the demand for health care services.
Nevertheless, the government continued to bring Cuban doctors to Mexico in subsequent years.
Sheinbaum said that Cuban doctors were hired to take up specialist positions in parts of the country where Mexicans don’t want to go.
No matter how many recruitment processes are undertaken, “There are no Mexican doctors who want to go to these places, many of which are in the most isolated places,” she said.
Jorge Alcocer, health minister in the previous federal government, said in 2022 that doctors had cited insecurity as the main reason why they didn’t want to work in rural areas of the country, but he also claimed that they were not interested in living in remote areas.
“They’re forgetting … the right patients have to be attended to wherever they are,” Alcocer said at the time.
Despite previous claims to the contrary, Sheinbaum said that Mexico has a shortage of doctors in some specialist fields of medicine.
“We already spoke about why there are not [enough] specialists in Mexico — because for years, the entire neoliberal period, [previous governments] closed off the possibility of there being specialist doctors,” she said, referring to the period between 1982 and 2018.
“It wasn’t until 2019 or 2020 that [former] president López Obrador doubled the training [opportunities] for specialist doctors,” Sheinbaum said while presenting a graph to support her point.
She also expressed her appreciation for the work Cuban doctors do in Mexico and told reporters that she has seen them at work herself during her weekend trips to different parts of the country.
Sheinbaum said she has also witnessed the “gratitude of the people” they have treated.
Ban on junk food in schools to take effect this month
A reporter noted that the ban on the sale of junk food in schools that was announced by the Public Education Ministry last October is scheduled to take effect on March 29 (even though that day is a Saturday).
“How will you monitor compliance with this provision?” the reporter asked the president.
Sheinbaum referred the question to Deputy Education Minister Noemí Juárez Pérez, who said that the Education Ministry is “already working with school supervisors” to ensure compliance with the ban.
“… They are our most direct eyes, and we’ll be using and needing their support a lot. They’re our supervisors,” she said.
Juárez also said that vendors of food in schools will receive training on “the products that can be sold” and “those that can’t be sold.”
“… The vendors already have some recipe books [and] guidelines about the preparation of products,” she added.
“… What we want is to provide options more than a limitation. … It’s about what healthy options can be offered in schools,” Juárez said.
According to regulations published in the government’s official gazette late last year, food offered at schools must comply with a range of requirements, including that they be of natural origin or minimally processed and that they be cooked (if required) with a minimal amount of oil.
The reform “seeks to shift children’s eating habits away from unhealthy Mexican staples, including chilaquiles, tacos de canasta and quesadillas,” Mexico News Daily reported in October. “School cafeterias are advised not to serve these types of meals to students.”
Schools that don’t comply with the rules will be subject to fines of up to 5,450 pesos (US $270).
Mexico seeking to avoid additional US tariffs
Sheinbaum noted that the government is still waiting to see how Mexico will be affected by the reciprocal tariffs the United States intends to impose on imports from all its trading partners on April 2.
“We’re always seeking an agreement and that Mexico is affected as little as possible,” she said.
“But if not, we have a plan, and we’ll speak clearly about what this would mean,” said Sheinbaum, who has expressed confidence that Mexico will avoid reciprocal tariffs because it doesn’t tax most imports from the United States.
“We’re always going to seek dialogue [with the United States] and to look after the [USMCA trade] agreement, which very much helps Mexico but also helps the United States a lot,” she said.
The United States imposed 25% on all imports from Mexico on March 4, but two days later lifted the duties on goods covered by the USMCA. Last week, the United States imposed 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, including those from Mexico.
Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard traveled to Washington D.C. on Thursday for more tariff talks with U.S. officials.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
